Maria Cerra

Maria Cerra Tishman placed fourth in foil at the 1948 Olympics, the best performance in foil by a US woman at the Olympics through 2012. Cerra started fencing at Salle Vince and attended Hunter College, where she was on two IWFA (now NIWFA) intercollegiate championship teams (1937, 1940) and also won the IWFA individual intercollegiate championship in1938 and 1940. After Salle Vince closed she switched to Salle Santelli. Cerra Tishman fenced on nine AFLA championship teams between 1935-47, and won the individual foil title in 1945, also placing third four times in the national championships.

Cerra Tishman was a charter member of the US Fencing Hall of Fame in 1963. In 1949 she became the first woman to officiate at the national championships. She was on the US Olympic fencing committee from 1965-68. Cerra Tishman was inducted into the Hunter College Sports Hall of Fame. Prior to marriage she worked as an insurance manager with the American Union Transport Shipping Company, but later was an elementary school teacher in the Oakland (NJ) School District for 20 years, until her 1984 retirement.